Oxford
by Felton J. Feynman
Summary: Lestrade, with Holmes, returns to Oxford to face down the ghosts of her past. In the face of an old feud, she fights to free herself and Holmes from the web of a warped, lovehate friendship.
1. The Way Home

Disclaimer: I do not own Sh22, although like everyone else I wish I did. I do not own Noelle, Christine, Jade or Kristall either. They belong to my friends, whom I have to thank for so kindly loaning their characters.

Help will probably be required along the way as I am a greenhorn at this. My sincere thanks go to kittyscratch91 for his/her advice. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the story, which is only a negative extrapolation of warped teenage friendships and is **not** to be taken seriously.

* * *

Greyson decided to pack us off that day. I guess he was tired of us buzzing around him like flies round a rotten banana. It was Advent, just a few weeks more to Christmas, and the criminals had been displaying "goodwill to all men". There hadn't been a single case for weeks. (Maybe they were busy wrapping their Christmas presents.) Oh, of course there were the usual petty thefts like a man swapping his cheap hat for rich man's expensive hat while the rich man was asleep on the Underground. The Yard gives those cases to the constables and the sergeants. I have a lot of friends who are constables. 

Greyson called us into his office in the middle of the morning. He called up this file on his computer and showed us that we had 21 days of unclaimed leave each and told us to get lost because we had to use up all our leave before the year was up, so we had better not come back before Christmas. I told him it was his fault because our shifts are Monday-Friday and he made us work overtime on Saturday when we had cases. He just grinned and grinned (showing all his coffee-stained yellow teeth). I thought getting rid of us for Christmas was the best Christmas present he had ever received.

Holmes didn't say a word when we pulled away from the Yard. He just stared straight ahead. He stared all the way through three sharp turns and a near-fatal accident with a garbage truck that made a wrong turn.

"Holmes?" I asked, jerking him from his trance. "What are you going to do until Christmas?"

He shook his head languidly. "Nothing," he replied in a monotone. "Stay in London."

"London's no good for your health," I remarked, looking out into the smog that covered the city. "It's too noisy and too polluted. I'm going to Oxford to spend Christmas with my family. Since you're free, why don't you come along?"

He finally fell out of his stupor and tried to sit up straight in his seat. "Is the Oxford University still there?" he asked.

"Of course it's still there. But only people wanting to do postgraduates go there nowadays. Most undergraduates attend the London U."

He smiled and said nothing. I kept on talking on whatever subject my wandering mind happened to alight on, trying to keep him awake.

"You know, Freud is now credited as something of a genius, but in his day I bet he felt like the most wretched man on earth. He was trained as a neurologist, but he eventually switched over to psychology. He was absolutely bursting with bright ideas, but they were so radical and new that everyone thought he was crazy. He was practically living his entire life in isolation. He wanted someone to listen… and then he found a friend, Fliess. I guess at the time he met Fliess he must have been thinking that he would be friends with Fliess forever, but after a decade their friendship ended. To fill the void came a long line of successors and associates, like Adler, Jung… and then they all left him. Poor soul. It's hard on geniuses, isn't it?"

Holmes shifted so that his body was half facing me. "Did he find anyone he could trust in the end?"

I stared out into the sunset. "His daughter, Anna Freud carried on his work. So, in the end, he had no friends officially." I sighed. "It's awful, simply awful. You liked someone, were inseparable, and then they left you out in the cold."

Holmes' countenance grew more solemn. "Actually, I felt the same with Watson when he married," he said quietly. "But we got our act together, in the end. We ended up spending our retirement together."

Holmes was lucky. At least he finished up with a best friend.

He started talking again, a little hesitantly. "I've never really heard you talk about your life before I knew you and I know you're not that close to your friends whom I met while on that business of the crooked man…I suppose you have a best friend in Oxford?"

I decided not to answer. Everything I said about Oxford, about my friends or my family, always led straight back to my close-knit bunch of old friends back there and Noelle. Oh, that girl! I used to think she was my best friend when we were in school together, but after a few years I was convinced I was totally wrong. The memory was so bad it was a stab through the heart.

The rays of the setting sun shone into the car and onto the rosary I had dropped on the dashboard.To combat the rising frustration and anger that usually came with thinking of Noelle, Ipickedthe rosary up, recited prayers andtried not to crash the hovercar. I had to get back to Oxford and settle some old scores.


	2. Reunion

I knew we were in Oxford when the landscape below us changed from skyscrapers to trees. I cruised along the streets slowly until I reached the top of the little hill and the familiar white fence came into view. The shrubs had been decorated for Christmas. Just outside the gate stood a short figure in a white shirt, looking down the road. I smiled. It was my mother, looking out for us. Good thing I had told her we were coming at nine.

After Holmes had escaped my family, who had been fussing over him, I led him to his bedroom. He paused in the hallway to inspect a Da Vinci cartoon hanging on the wall.

"Holmes," I called. He whirled around sharply, accidentally knocking down a photo from the shelf. The plastic frame hit the carpet with a hardly audible thud. Holmes picked it up and looked at it, the expression in his blue-grey eyes softening.

"Your younger days?"

I took the photo from him as if in a daze. "It's just me and my friends," I explained, replacing the photo on the shelf. "We were fourteen then."

There was a deafening crash from the kitchen and the both of us jumped. Running into the kitchen, we found my mother trying her utmost to fight a large Styrofoam piece shaped like a whale and other assorted bits and pieces into a ridiculously tiny plastic bag. We helped her wrap it up in brown paper and tie the monstrosity up with string.

"Thanks," she said. "Good thing you managed to get it under control. Mrs. Fitzgerald would murder me if I don't get it to her today."

"What's it for?" I asked. "We can help you get it down to her. We've nothing to do anyway."

"It's for the annual Advent fair," explained my mum. "We're supposed to be putting up a puppet show with the story of Moby Dick and Mrs. Fitzgerald is supposed to decorate Moby. You'll find her at the market. The fair is the day after tomorrow."

We started to push the package out of the kitchen. "Oh, Beth!" called my mother. "If you see your friends you should invite them over tomorrow night!"

With an old creaky trolley, we trundled down to the market with the snowy-white, eyeless whale in search of Mrs. Fitzgerald.

A blind man could find the market easily. What distinguished it was the noise that came from it. Mrs. Fitzgerald was easy enough to find. As soon as we stepped in, we heard a loud cry, "Flowers for sale, going cheap! Buy 'em while they're still going cheap!"

We followed the shrill voice and came to a brightly coloured table littered with flowers and a little old woman standing at it. "Mrs. Fitzgerald?" I called.

The old woman raised herself on her plump, dimpled arms and squinted at us through her thick glasses. 'Why, if it isn't Beth Lestrade come home!" she cackled, her face breaking into a toothy grin. "Nice to see you home, dearie." She turned to Holmes. "And who's this handsome young man? Are you her boyfriend?"

I gave a nervous laugh. "No, no, he's just a friend. My mother sent you something." We heaved the package off the trolley and deposited it on the counter. Mrs. Fitzgerald poked a hole in the paper with her little finger and peeped inside.

"Oh!" she chuckled. "It's old Moby! Well, well, well. Here's something for your mother. Send her my regards."

She disappeared behind the mountains of flowers and came up with an enormous cuboid-shaped white package, which she helped load onto the trolley. We bid her goodbye and trundled on.

We hadn't gone more than a few paces forward when a familiar voice behind us cried out, "Hey! Isn't that Beth? I thought she was in London?"

"She comes back for Christmas, you dummy," answered an equally familiar voice. We turned around to behold two figures standing in the middle of the path gawking at us. It was Noelle and Christine.

"Hey guys!" I said. "What are you doing here?"

Noelle put on a pitiful expression. "Have mercy on us, poor children whose parents have turned us out into the cold winter… to buy groceries!"

"Ditto," said Christine, shrugging. "Who's your friend?" I turned to Holmes.

"Holmes, meet Noelle and Christine. They were my best friends at school."

"And still are!" added Christine with finality, grinning.

"You two, this is Sherlock Holmes. He's supposed to be my subordinate at work but he doesn't act like it at all."

"Wait, wait, wait!" shrieked Noelle. "That is Sherlock Holmes? The real Sherlock Holmes."

"One and the same," said Holmes, with the famous dramatic flair.

"Oh yeah, I just remembered. If you've got time tomorrow night you can come over to my house for the annual get-together. I promised I'd organize it."

They looked at each other for a minute and then replied. "Sure. We wouldn't miss it for the world."

We trundled on back to the house as fast as we could go so we could get rid of the huge white package sitting comfortably in the trolley.

* * *

Should I continue this story? Should I abandon it and let everybody guess what happened between Lestrade and Noelle? I think this would a good time to beg for reviews. Oh, and thanks Crystal. 


	3. A Friendship Forsaken

Oh dear, oh dear, this tale is getting very dystopic! A big thank you to TeaYami, and yes I think girls rock too. And for those who need a reminder, this story is just a negative extrapolation and is not to be taken seriously!

* * *

I decided to call Jade and Kristall in the evening after dinner to check if they were free to attend our little gathering. Kristall accepted immediately. Jade was a little hesitant. 

"You invited Noelle?" she asked. "Are you sure it's okay?" I just shrugged and she went on. "Beth, you know what happened the last time."

"I didn't know. It was a little risky to be given instructions solely by her and then be taken in."

"Taken in? Beth Felicity Lestrade, that's the understatement of the year! Do you even remember what she did? She told you to meet at four at her house when we were meeting at three. Then at three-thirty she told us that we were going to the mall to meet you there as something had cropped up with you. She was all smiley and everything… we genuinely thought you were going to meet us there. By four-thirty you weren't there and she acted like nothing had happened."

My lips curled into a wry smile. "But I caught up with you all eventually, didn't I? I'm not making the same mistake this time. That's why I'm organizing."

Jade gave another sigh. "At that time I didn't understand why you wanted to organize it so much. I guess all of us had been duped. But why didn't you tell us then that you'd been tricked? You'd realized, right? Kristall and Christine are still in the dark, and I didn't know until you told me. Why didn't you tell?"

"You won't understand. It's late, Jade. Goodnight."

"Beth! It's only seven…"

I hung up on her, shut down my computer and ran out of my bedroom. I ran down the stairs and into the living room. Throwing the door open, I dashed out into the cool night air. I had to escape.

The park wasn't that far away and I could find my way there by moonlight. The stray bits of leaves and litter had been swept away and the concrete path was clear. My shoes made hardly any sound as I walked slowly up the path.

Jade certainly didn't understand. The friendship Noelle and I shared was a little extraordinary. I stared hard into the darkness and tried to rally my thoughts, which were as organized as random ink squiggles on paper.

Odd though, how I couldn't remember how we started hating each other. All I remember is waking up one day when I was sixteen and thinking of how I was going to get back at Noelle for the evil thing she had said to me the day before. One day we were best friends, and the next day we wanted to kill each other.

I remembered clearly though, how she talked scorned me loudly in public one day. When I remembered the unusual way I had retaliated, I had to clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a wild peal of laughter.

The constant cold wars, the stiff formality, the competition and all, those were the things that were my teenage life. My hand clenched into a fist. The war was not over yet. A slow smile spread over my face and I wanted to jump up and down and scream with unrestrained laughter. Oh, the look on her face, her face!

I decided against it when I heard the steady sound of footsteps on the pavement. I wanted to stop and analyze the sound like Holmes had taught me too, but instinct and a lifetime of my mother's advice told me to run.

I was jumping up when I saw Holmes' familiar figure striding towards me. I stopped and turned to face him.

"I thought you were here," said Holmes quietly, sitting down beside me. I couldn't help feeling a little disoriented, his manner was rather unusual. I inquired if he was looking for me on an urgent matter.

He shrugged. "You could say so. I gather something must have happened to make you leave the house so quickly?"

"It's just a relationship problem with Noelle," I said in a flat tone. "We used to be best friends, but we haven't exactly been getting along these few years."

Holmes said nothing, but nodded knowingly.

"If I knew things were going to turn out this way I wouldn't have said hi to her on that first day."

"It happens, and is inevitable, Beth. It's fate."

I stared at him, hard. Sherlock Holmes just did not believe in fate.

"Think of a strange twist that brings two people together. Think of two destinies entwined," Holmes was saying. "It sounds like some opera or play, but when it happens to you, you don't think about it like that anymore." He took a deep breath. "Beth, I've decided."

I jerked my head up, my heart racing. "Decided what?"

"I can't wait my whole entire life and let a chance slip by. That's one thing I learnt from you." He raised his head to look at me. "When you want something, when you've thought about it long and hard, action's the only way to get it."

My mind was reeling, jumping all over the place to make sense of what my friend was saying. I felt the warm touch of his hand, his strong fingers interlocking with mine.

"Holmes…"

"I know what I want, Beth," he continued. "I've had enough adventure and danger in my first life. I want a future with no more loneliness, no more wandering around. I want a future with you."

I thought I would burst with happiness, but at the same time I found myself wondering if it was all a dream and I would wake up and find myself alone in a dark bedroom. Holmes held out an open velvet case, slightly worn at the edges and discoloured with age. In it lay a delicate diamond ring on a silver chain.

"Beth," he said softly. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes," I whispered as he drew me closer and I felt the warmth of his body against mine. "Yes, I will."

And then I knew it was no dream.

* * *

For those who want (and care) to know, thatis the hardest chapter I have ever written in my whole entire life. It went through 4 revisions. 


	4. The Fight Goes On

The tale is getting really quite nasty so I'd advise the tender hearted not to read it. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and I'm sorry for breaking my update routine a few times. I'm sorry for my apparent stupidity in the last chapter, but I cannot reveal too much information in this story for some personal reasons.

* * *

I looked in the mirror again. My doppelganger stared back at me. I hissed at her to put on a smile or something; she looked clinically depressed. She told me she was depressed because she didn't like to think what I was going to do to Noelle, the poor girl.

I rolled my eyes at her. My doppelganger had the uncanny ability to predict what I was planning to do next. I told her, very firmly, that she didn't have to feel sorry for Noelle because she had had it coming to her for a long time.

"Don't you remember how it started?" I asked her. "Why am I so nice as to spell it out for you again? We were best friends in elementary school but in secondary school there was just too much competition for the necessities of teenage life and we fell out and started trying to outwit each other at every turn. We're still at it."

My doppelganger wanted to know what necessities we were fighting over.

"I know it sounds trivial now," I said. "But it was a great deal to me in those days. Things like attention, where we dueled to see who could get the loudest laughter or the longest applause. Things like grades, where we wanted to be the best in everything. Things like being the leader of our pack of friends. But there is room enough for only one leader, and I was there first…"

My doppelganger suddenly looked very sad. I guess she was grieving for the friend she had lost. We see a lot of these cases. I threw a towel at the mirror before walking out of the door. I always end off with throwing a towel at the mirror when I finish my session of self-reflection.

The doorbell rang while I was on the landing and I raced down the rest of the stairs, nearly colliding with Sherlock. Noelle was standing on the doorstep.

"Since you're here you can help me decide what game to play," I said, dragging her into the house in a false show of friendliness. "What shall we play? Snakes and Ladders? Cluedo? Monopoly?"

"I'll stick with Monopoly," said she, laughing. "I like grabbing other people's property!" She plopped herself down on the sofa and to be hospitable, I hung around talking to her and Sherlock.

The doorbell rang again, interrupting us. I went to the door and opened it, only to see an empty doorstep and nary a sign of human life. I was about to mutter something about pranksters when three figures leapt out from behind the rose bush and yelled, "Merry Christmas!"

I thought my heart would fail there and then; they had scared me so badly. Jade, Kristall and Christine trotted into the house, leaving me with my hand frozen to the doorknob in fright.

I found Sherlock sitting on the sofa and Noelle slumped down to his left. Noelle was talking, but she was speaking so softly I couldn't hear what she was saying. She was smiling a little, but her eyes were obscured. Sherlock had a slight look of distress on his face, but he was trying to hide it. When he heard us troop into the room he jumped up like a rabbit which had been shot in the backside and gave us a loud welcome, brushing some imaginary dust off his left shoulder.

My friends greeted him back, and Noelle screamed at them from her place on the sofa. It was the usual rowdy greeting we gave to one another, and it was just like old times again. Sherlock seemed a little agitated though, something which was rather unusual. I would have expected Noelle to be the agitated one and Sherlock to be the one with the pants glued to the sofa.

It was terribly odd, and I meant to inquire about it afterwards but it slipped my mind in the face of all the trouble the gang was giving me.

We ate separately from the rest of my family, because I knew my friends were sure to make a mess. Usually we were pretty tidy eaters but when we ate together we would behave like overgrown children. We had to hold Jade and Kristall down to stop them from throwing mashed potato at each other. That wouldn't stop them from yelling insults between bites, though.

"You have such elegant table manners, Jade," remarked Kristall sardonically when Jade tried to build a snowman with her potatoes. Jade slammed down her spoon, smashing the snowman and sending gravy splattering everywhere.

"You can just take that back, you great big taffeta punk!"

Christine looked at the remains of the snowman and said gravely, "My condolences on the sad demise of the potato man, destroyed by my friend Jade on the twelfth of December, 2104."

We played Monopoly after we had finished dinner. Kristall had a whole bag of tricks up her sleeve, and not a single one of them legal. Halfway through the game, Christine thought it was a little too quiet for her taste and demanded that I play some music. Jade followed me upstairs.

"Don't you have anything good to listen to?" she asked, peering into the shelf where I kept all my favourite CDs.

"There's NDWZ, if you want."

"Geek music," she sniffed. "But I forgot, what's it stand for again?"

"The second New German Wave. I'll play my favourite one."

I reached down to get the CD. Jade frowned and asked, "I thought you said you didn't wear any crucifixes and stuff around your neck because of Protestant trouble?"

"That's right; I don't."

"Then what's that chain around your neck?" She pulled it out and stared at the diamond ring hanging on it.

"It belonged to Holmes' mother," I explained. "She eloped."

"Oh m goodness," breathed Jade. "Oh my goodness."

She looked like she was going to faint.

"You're engaged!" shrieked Jade. "To Sherlock Holmes!"

I sensed trouble, so I grabbed the CD and bolted. From the top of the stairs, everything looked pretty normal. Noelle was looking over Sherlock's shoulder at his cards and trying to give advice. Now that was funny, I thought, because Noelle never gave advice to anyone. I heard Jade racing down the stairs and I took one last look at the calm before Jade destroyed it altogether.

Jade pushed past me and into the circle. She yelled something, but I couldn't quite hear it because I was lost in my own attempts to make sense of Noelle and Sherlock's actions. I saw Kristall drop her money, saw the paper notes flutter away. It was so quiet you could hear everyone thinking.

"No!" I heard Christine say in disbelief.

"You know, Jade," said Kristall, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "I'm beginning to regret lending you those romance books."

Sherlock came up to me and took my hand. "It is true," he said quietly. I sighed. We had initially planned to keep our engagement as quiet as possible but it looked like it had been blown by Jade.

Everyone looked a bit shocked, with the exception of Noelle, who was sitting there flipping through her cards with a slight frown on her forehead, the expression she usually had when she was planning her next move. Then, she looked up and her expression cleared.

"Why, who would have guessed it?" she said, looking around at us. "Beth's just managed to snag Sherlock Holmes for herself."

They laughed. The jest was innocent, or at least meant to be. But I saw the gleam in her eye and I trembled inwardly, because I knew something bad was blowing in the wind. I wondered wryly what wonderful surprise would be laid out for me this time. Something was brewing and I didn't like it.

"Yes, who would have guessed it," I echoed. "The very nerd of Oxford, too. Indeed, our schooling life was very different from our present lives. Success there was not exactly replicated in this life." I sat back and smiled. I had to show Noelle I was no pushover. In a moment, Kristall would bring up the topic out of sheer habit, unconsciously launching a fresh attack against Noelle.

"Who says? You were brilliant in school, and you're still brilliant now, I believe," said Kristall. Good old Kristall, I thought. I only had to mention the words 'school' and 'success' to make her bring up the topic of my former glory.

"In fact," Kristall continued. "We all tried to beat you at grades and we haven't succeeded yet." Christine grinned and agreed heartily. Watching Noelle struggle to maintain her smile, an icy glee spread over my heart. Noelle hated hearing of my academic success, and it might occur to anyone to ask why. Noelle was among those who had tried to beat me and failed, and she had always been a little sore.

She cut Kristall off in mid-sentence and looked at her watch. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. "I think I will be setting off home now." She stood up quickly, accidentally knocking over my empty glass and sending the ice skidding across the floor. She said goodbye to all of us. Just before she left, she gave Sherlock one last look and walked away whistling softly.

Then it struck me and the blindfold was torn from my eyes. It was there all along and I had not seen it. You can go to Africa and stay there, I screamed mentally at Noelle's retreating figure. I know what it all means now, why you helped Sherlock, why he was behaving so strangely, I yelled. I know why now.

There came no reply, save for the steady tap-tap of Noelle's sneakers on the pavement.

* * *

I just realised that nobody really knows Lestrade's full name. I asked a dozen people and got a dozen different answers. And to my friends: look for the light at the end of the dystopia. 


	5. A WarCry

This is going to climax and end soon, thank goodness. I really can't keep up long stories. I don't want to write any more psychological fanfiction, or at least any Fitzgeraldian ones. They exhaust one.

* * *

I cried about it later.

I hated doing this to Noelle, but I couldn't stop. After she realised she couldn't get me at academic studies, she turned her attention to other things. That was the day Noelle died. No more friendly greetings in the corridors at schools, no more calls or emails, just an icy silence.

I resented her for her silence. I didn't want to lose my best friend, especially when her iciness was hurting me terribly. I wanted to make her pay for it. That was when she became my rival.

This was her revenge now, to steal Sherlock from me.

The flame had been lit; it was war.

The sky was gradually lightening. I dressed quickly and went downstairs, even though I had slept little and spent most of the night worrying and thinking. I went downstairs and found Sherlock drinking tea at the empty breakfast table.

"Mother and Father have gone to the fairgrounds to set up," said Sherlock. "Eat your breakfast and we'll go and meet them."

I slipped silently into my usual place at the table. "Did Noelle do anything… strange yesterday?" I asked quietly.

Sherlock looked at me. "I know. Don't worry, she'll forget about it sooner or later."

"What…Sherlock, I never told you anything."

"I heard you pacing in your room for most of the night and when you finally fell asleep I heard you railing against Noelle in your sleep. Quite elementary, really."

After I had eaten a hurried breakfast we walked out into the mist of the fairgrounds.

"Roll up, roll up," my dad was yelling. "See the monstrous Moby Dick gobble a shipload of people!"

"Relax, Henry, the fair hasn't started yet."

"I know. I'm just practicing."

After Sherlock and I had set up the booth, we walked around the compound to see what we could see. "Beth! Over here!" screamed a voice.

We turned to see Jade and Kristall running towards us. "It's important, it's disastrous, and it's official!" panted Jade.

"National crisis! It's war!" added Kristall.

"Hang on, hang on. Slow down, and tell me what this is all about."

Jade looked at Kristall worriedly. "Shall we show it to her?"

Kristall produced a piece of paper from her bag. "It's okay. We know you're on our side. We found it on the ground just now."

"Who's on the other side?" I asked, unfolding the grubby slip and looking at the note.

"Christine: it read

Meet me at nine in the park. They'll be at the Advent Fair. Something has to be done about her. This is dead urgent.

N."

"Trouble," said Sherlock quietly.

"Can you do something about it?" I asked urgently. "This is really big trouble. Jade, stall with the answers when they ask you anything. Reply casually so they don't know what's going on. Kristall, be sarcastic to Jade."

"I need an excuse!" cried Kristall. "We've decided. Since you and Holmes obviously can't go and see what's happening, I'm going. I'll communicate to Jade, who is staying down here and she will pass on the information to you."

"Good. Now, I think you will have to pass through the park on some pretext. Lurk behind the trees at first, don't be seen and listen in. Then make a noisy entrance and ask them if they've seen, say, a camera. Say your younger brother dropped it here yesterday. I hope Christopher won't mind?"

Kristall shook her head.

"It's now a quarter to nine. Set off now, and I'll expect text messages from you about the information."

Kristall ran off for the park. I shook my head sadly. "I never thought it would come to this. It's all my fault."

Sherlock looked at me questioningly.

"If I hadn't tried to compete with her back then she wouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry," I whispered.

Sherlock didn't say anything, just hugged me.

The news came in at five past eight.

"They're here," read the text message. "I'm going to call. Go to a quiet place and don't make a noise."

We hurried to one of the storehouses and sat down on a crate. Jade's communicator rang, jarringly. She accepted the call and soon we heard the exchange.

"Does she even know you like him?" Christine was saying. "If she doesn't you're just being absurd."

"Look, I don't know what she knows!" said Noelle sharply in reply. "She always has ways of finding out things. You know her. All her Freud, the unconscious, sympto-whatever actions… she can see right through us."

"Get to the point. What do you want to do?"

"Make them break the engagement."

"You can't! For heaven's sake, maybe Holmes doesn't even like you. You're just breaking up our friendships! Why do you want to do this to Beth anyway?"

Noelle was clearly at breaking point. "She's just such a power-hungry…"

"Be reasonable. Just because she seemed to have everything she wanted doesn't mean she's power-hungry. She had a lot of unhappiness too! In fact, what right have you got to do this, seeing how you treated her at our last get-together? No wonder she wanted to organize so much this time. She's scared, you know. She's afraid you do the same thing to her again, give her the wrong instructions and make her get lost."

There was a heavy silence. We stayed frozen with anticipation.

Noelle came in again. "How did you know about the gathering?"

"Jade told me. Beth told her everything."

"Beth, Beth, Beth. Yeah, right. See, you're even taking her side! I mean, if Beth was upset, she could have just told us, right? If Beth wasn't happy she could have just said so, right?"

"It isn't as easy as that, Noelle."

"More like she wanted to see us get hurt."

"Us? There's no us in here, Noelle. It was you. You hurt her, you pay the price. I'm not involving myself."

It sounded like Christine was walking away. Then came Noelle's voice again, vicious and cutting.

"You forgot again, Christine. We've got a crack down the middle. We've got Beth, Jade and Kristall on one side and you and me on the other. If everyone votes me out for what I've done, you'll be left alone. And then, I tell you, you'll be the next to go, Miss Giry. Or you'll be their doormat for life. But if you join me, we'll still have each other."

Then, Christine's voice again. "What do you want to do?"

The answer came readily. "Spread rumours that Beth just wants to marry him for his fame. They'll be pressured to break up. I can manage from there. He'll just forget her in favour of me."

There was a uncomfortable silence, and then a word. "No."

There was the crash of someone making her way through the tall grass and an anguished voice screaming in the background.

"Go ahead, Christine Giry! Go on and see what they do to you!"

There was a click and the call ended.

The darkness of the room suddenly seemed a lot more oppressive. Things looked bad, but I still clung on to the hope that one day the silence would end and Noelle would be my best friend again.


End file.
